


On the Road

by rocksalt_rifle (trismegistus)



Series: Fullmetal Alchemist/Supernatural Mashup [10]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-06
Updated: 2009-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trismegistus/pseuds/rocksalt_rifle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Road

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The car, older than them both and looking as good as she did the day she rolled off the assembly line purred as Ed accelerated smoothly down the dusty highway. The heat bounced off the blacktop and straight back through the slanted windshield. Al was reclined back, stripped down to a tight tee shirt and torn jeans and shaggy hair being whipped by the solid wind as they shot down the highway.

They had left the bayou behind after a few rounds with a hoodoo priest that ended with the priest being rather messily devoured by an overzealous alligator. Ed had wanted to go west and Al couldn't find a good argument not to head that way, so they got onto I-10 and put Louisiana in their rear view mirrors.

Low on cash, they'd been pulling off the highway, finding secluded stretches of road and sleeping in the car. Sooner or later they'd have to stop off in a town to do a laundry run, and Ed figured they'd find a motel and spend a day or two off the road, poke around and see what they could turn up. Sometimes they'd turn up nothing, but Al had a keen nose for a hunt. At about two in the afternoon he woke up enough to pester Ed into pulling off the highway and into a small suburban town.

Al's hunches were usually right on the money. Al checked them into a cheap motel on the edge of town and Ed hosed down the car while Al took a shower. They hustled pool and poker that night at a biker bar; Al took two burly guys for almost a grand before they wised up. Ed got to break a bar stool over someone's head, so he called the night a win even as they had to move to a motel two towns over and keep their heads down for a few days.

Three towns were being afflicted with a bizarre rash of illnesses. Perfectly healthy people with no history of medical illnesses were wasting away to practically nothing. There were no apparent way to link the victims, which was making this case particularly tough. Ed would have dismissed it as something else entirely but Al kept worrying at the newspapers like a dog with a bone, certain that there was a supernatural element to these deaths that he just couldn't put his finger on.

It was Ed, actually, who realized that the common factor between the towns was that certain parts of each town drew from a common reservoir. All those that came down with the wasting illness lived in those areas. And, not surprisingly, the newest staff worker there started two weeks before the illness started spreading.

The caretaker was a pisacas, a hindi demon that drew the life-force from people through the water they ingested and expelled. Fortunately for them both once they put the pieces together it was easy enough to dispatch the creature. Of course the pisacas didn't go quietly into the night and they had to make a hasty exit into the night, but they didn't stop until they'd put a few dozen miles down.

Ed didn't make mention of the fact that Al had pinned the thing down, even briefly, without touching it. Al didn't say anything about the fact that Ed had facilitated their escape via a transmutation circle painted on the wall in his own blood. Their aimless wandering got cut neatly short by a phone call from Winry and with only a little hesitation they headed toward Nebraska, and a new job to do.


End file.
